Bull-evard of (broken) dreams

The axed Sunday Times columnist says he has not yet received an offer to present a TV talk show, but finds the idea appealing. “Wouldn’t it be lovely?”

A “couple of” publications have expressed interest in hosting his column, which the Sunday Times discontinued last week for being “racist”. Bullard says he would consider “expressions of interest” from The Star, Citizen and !_LT_EMMail & Guardian!_LT_/EM. A website has offered him “a six figure salary to write two columns a month”.

There is “no great hurry” to make a decision.

Bullard plans to consult with his lawyers on Thursday to discuss the procedure that was followed in sacking him Ã¢Â€Â“ he was fired telephonically, without a warning.

The way it happened, he says, was a blow to him.

For 14 years there “was no line” to cross at Sunday Times. Yet, after more than 690 articles, it was this past week claimed he had gone too far in a column about colonialism. “You do expect the editor to read what goes into the paper,” he says about Sunday Times editor href=”/themedia/view/themedia/en/page255?oid=7370&sn=Detail” target=_blank mce_href=”/themedia/view/themedia/en/page255?oid=7370&sn=Detail”Mondli Makhanya’s claim that he had not seen the column before publication and that it should never have been published in the first place.

Bullard claims Makhanya rejected his offer to resign because of the offence caused by the href=”http://www.thetimes.co.za/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=741855″ target=_blank mce_href=”http://www.thetimes.co.za/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=741855″column on colonialism; only to sack him two days later because of this “racist” piece.

“I think there was pressure (on Makhanya).”

He believes an href=”http://www.empiremagazine.co.za/emp3_bullard_stat.html” target=_blank mce_href=”http://www.empiremagazine.co.za/emp3_bullard_stat.html”article in Empire magazine in which he criticised management for its “lack of vision, pettiness and the creeping mediocrity” was “definitely” linked to the move.

“They (Avusa, owner of Sunday Times) were more than grumpy (about the !_LT_EMEmpire!_LT_/EM piece). No one likes to be called an arsehole…”

Bullard claims Makhanya asked him to apologise to colleagues following the publication of the Empire article, but when he approached two “leading guys” in the newsroom, they laughed about it. He thinks Avusa management was offended, not colleagues in the newsroom.

He is “quite happy” to do battle with Avusa. Bullard is, however, not planning on claiming damages for defamation from anyone after being branded a racist over his last !_LT_EMSunday Times!_LT_/EM column. “If I can’t win with the pen, it’s not worth winning. I’m going to nail them with the pen.”

Bullard is not “particularly proud” of thiscolumn. “It’s not great satire.”

He says the “point” he makes is that people who keep blaming the white settlers should “get over it”, because if they didn’t colonise South Africa, others would have.

“Yes, there was a lot of cruelty in the past. But there’s an awful lot of dwelling on the past.”

Bullard says in an attempt to appease the past, some “poor guys” are being put into positions for which they are not qualified, and that negatively affects the economy.

Asked if he believed what he had written in his last Sunday Times column, Bullard said he had written about an “imaginary world”.

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